The Canada Chronicles--Language

One thing about the Greater Vancouver Area is the sheer quantity and variety of languages that are being spoken at any one time. I have absolutely lost count of how many I've heard, and have taken to furiously scribbling down any new words I hear in my trusty moleskin notebook. During the day, one may find me practicing quietly to myself, which gives the locals a certain amount of interest or fear depending on the people group.

Luckily for me, I am rooming with a retentive genius who knows at least a few words in about a quadzillion different languages. I take full advantage of this. My notebook gets fuller by the day. Even more interestingly, my roommate grew up in Zimbabwe, and one of the languages she is more familiar with is Ndebele, of the Amandebele tribe, which is a click language.

YEah. I know.

So obviously, as soon as I found out about this I asked for some words in Ndebele, and have been practicing ever since. THere are three clicks in Ndebele: Q, X, and C is how we will hereby note them, and the way to become familiar with them is to click through all the vowels: Qa, Qe, Qi, Qo, Qu, Xa, Xe, Xi, Xo, Xu, et cetera. I have been practicing quite diligently, especially on my pracitce sentance: "I would like a glass of ice water" (nivela amanzi lomnQoQane).

In practicing my various languages, I have developed certain techniques-- do's and dont's, if you will. For example, I recommend practicing your languages every day. I also recomend speaking Korean at the Korean fellowship, because it entertains them and is also educational. I don't recoment pracitcing Ndebele with gum in your mouth because not only is it impossible, it also provides the danger of projectile objects landing in precarious places. For example, the turban of the unsuspecting Sikh man sitting on the bus in front of you. Just saying.

I have also noticed differences in the language that I have spoken all my life. For example, there is a word we use in the English language to describe a girl or woman of loose morals, and it start with an "sl" and rhymes with cut. And though this is not exactly a favorable word, we have discovered that it is not nearly as bad in the U.S. as it seems to be in Canada. We have discovered this only through trial and error. ("Oh. Indeed," says Jennifer). Painful trial and error.
We know this because recently, JEnn, Callie, Gloria and I decided on 3 basic rules for life. These are a combination of 1) Jennifer's youth camp rule (don't die), 2)my Theatre troupe rule (don't be dumb) and 3) Jennifer's sage summary of the Bible for her younger brother (stay away from girls who're described with the word that starts with "sl" and rhymes with cut)

I, for one, am very pleased with these rules for life. I find them accurate and furthermore effective. However, the roomful of adults to whom we related this story seemed the tiniest bit mortified. Well, all except Mrs Margaret, the sweetest, most loving woman in this world, who later had to ask her daughter (gloria) what it meant. It was Gloria who later explained to us the gravity of this word. We've tried not to bring it up anymore.

Our presence in Canada has broadened some horizons. Fo real.

Oh, Canada.